When Grey Zabel was still finding his way in his first NFL training camp, veteran DeMarcus Lawrence offered the rookie guard a welcome-to-the-NFL moment.

But then, as Seattle's veteran linemen did all season, Lawrence also pulled Zabel aside for some one-on-one teaching.

The Seahawks are playing the Patriots in Super Bowl LX on Sunday for a number of reasons, and one of the biggest ones is the play of a veteran defensive line that has been a strength of the team all season long. Overall, the Seahawks have one of the NFL's youngest rosters, but in what head coach Mike Macdonald referred to as "a masterclass by John (Schneider) and our personnel folks," they have some great veteran leadership and playmaking sprinkled in amongst all that youth, from Cooper Kupp, Sam Darnold and Eric Saubert on offense to Lawrence, Leonard Williams, Jarran Reed, Uchenna Nwosu and Julian Love on defense.

And for a defense known as The Dark Side, those veteran linemen have helped definite the attitude and approach that has made the Seahawks' defense the best in the NFL.

"You can't replicate what they've done for this organization, for this team," Zabel said. "The culture, the connectivity, the leadership that they bring to the table, it's one of one. I still remember in training camp where D-Law bumped inside to a three-tech, it was a pass play, and I tried throwing my hands, and he just grabbed my wrist out of midair. I was like, 'All right, this is going to be a looong day.'

"Then him after practice working with me, telling me what he's looking for, what he understands of my game and stuff like that, and Leo and J-Reed and (Byron) Murphy have done that. And the coolest thing of it all is that they didn't owe me anything when I first showed up. They've been so giving, and the knowledge that they gave me to help me understand about this game of football has been remarkable. I'll never be able to repay those guys. That just goes to show you what type of people they are, what type of human beings and leaders that they are that they take a guy like me who's so green under their wing, show me the ropes."

For a young player like Zabel, seeing those players reach the pinnacle of the sport is more rewarding than getting there himself.

"Nobody is more deserving," he said. "I thought it was a cool thing, after the NFC championship, somebody came up to me and asked me how rewarding is it to be going to the Super Bowl, and the first thing that hit my mind was, 'I don't deserve this. This is not about me, this is about guys like Leonard Williams, J-Reed, D-Law, Sam, those guys that have been in the NFL and that have poured into me and been the best teammates they possibly could be. It's for these guys.

"I'm just glad to be a part of it and glad to be here to do my part to get them there, because they're the most deserving guys on our team to be able to go to the Super Bowl and I'm excited to see them in the moment and see them take in the opportunity on Sunday."

Third-year cornerback Devon Witherspoon echoed Zabel's sentiment about being happier for the veteran players' success than his own, especially Lawrence, Williams and Reed, all of whom have been in the league for at least a decade without a Super Bowl appearance.

"It means everything having those guys in the room," said Witherspoon. "The way they set the standard, the way they're consistent in their work, you can tell they've been good for a long time, just by the way they work. It doesn't happen overnight, and those guys stay consistent with it every day. You can tell why they've been great in this league for so long.

"It means everything to be able to get guys like that a chance to play in the Super Bowl. I'm more happy for them than I am for myself. There's no way they didn't make the Super Bowl before, I just can't believe it. The way they play together, the way they go about their business, it's just kind of shocking to me."

Williams, who spent nine seasons with the Jets and Giants before being traded to the Seahawks in 2023, said last week that the moment really started to hit him when he and his wife, Hailey, were celebrating on the Lumen Field turf after the NFC Championship Game. Through his first 10 seasons, Williams established himself as one of the league's best interior linemen, but he didn't get to enjoy a lot of team success, playing in just two playoff games with the Giants before this year. Now, playing the role of veteran leader on a young team, Williams is finally enjoying that team success that eluded him for most of his career.

"We have a great balance of young and older players," Williams said. "Our older players have gone through adversity, gone through multiple teams, so I think it's a great balance to have guys that are older on the team like me, Jarran Reed, DeMarcus Lawrence, Sam Darnold, Ernest Jones, I could name so many guys, but it's a great balance of, we're showing those young guys to not take this moment for granted, because we know how hard it is to get to these moments. I think that's one of my roles as well, just being a leader, teaching Byron, teaching some of the other young guys, and I think they do a good job of understanding it."

Williams mentioning the 26-year-old Jones as an older leader is a reflection on the wise-beyond-his-years linebacker's maturity and experience, but despite his relative youth compared to the veteran D-line trio of Lawrence, Williams and Reed, Jones does bring a similar level of gravitas to the defense. What he has, however, that they don't, is previous Super Bowl experience, having won the Super Bowl with the Rams four years ago, which is why Jones, like so many other younger teammates, is so happy for his veteran teammates' success.

"This time, sitting here, just truly enjoying the process, seeing these guys do this for the first time, it's major," Jones said. "In a sense, it's what we do it for. I'm super happy for those guys, they deserve it. We didn't get this far just to get this far, let's go finish it.

"They've been everything to us. They keep us composed. When we get too high, they bring us back down and make sure we stay humble to this game. They've been our constant leadership, just keeping us poised and keeping us going."